This blog will be updated by his family while he is
gone on his mission for two years to Hungary.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Farsang Buli and Back to Budapest

This week was great! As usual!

So this week we went Back to Budapest. It seems at least one event every month requires a trip to Budapest. We went for zone conference, which was combined with the Southwest and Budapest zones. The next day would be the West, East, and Southeast zones. We had our training from Patrick Kearon, from the seventy, in the area presidency for this corner of the world. It was really amazing, of course! He talked a lot about teaching by the Spirit communication with other people.

Today we are going to go to Zirc again and check out all the gardens there and the Cistercian Abbey. We will take lots of pictures -- which I will send out once I have access to a computer that I can connect to. :) :)

Yesterday was a Hungarian holiday. It celebrated a revolt against whatever country was invading them in 1848 (I think is was Austria?). Everyone wore a pin with a red, white, and green ribbon all day, and to church. When we were walking back to our place, we passed an outdoor concert, with a string quartet and a lady singing what I think was traditional Hungarian music. Everyone was holding wooden torches for lighting. The night before was a farsang buli, or costume party, at the branch-house. A couple of our investigators came, and the food was really good.

So, story, this family we tracted into the other week, to whom we gave the Family Proclamation pamphlet to, we called them this morning and set up with them. We really hope it turns out well!

Our investigator who is being baptized on the 28th, is set to read the entire church library by the end of the year. She found us through a pass along card she received. Read the scriptures! They invite the Spirit and make things work out! At least the important things! Anyways, she has shared the copies of the Book of Mormon with some members of her family and has talked and read out of the book of Mormon with her daughter and son-in-law that live in Veszprém.

Flashback to the other family I have talked about in other emails. This is the family that we have been trying to set up with for a while, and they came to the New Year's Eve party and to sacrament meeting when their friend was giving a talk. They have friends that are members and sometimes we call them and see if they want to meet, but we haven't been able to meet yet.

Returning to the first investigator. We were helping her fill out her baptismal papers. She got to her children's names. PLOT TWIST!!! She is the family's mom. We had absolutely no idea, the member family had no idea, in fact a lot of people had no idea. Apparently the mysterious daughter and son in law that she was sharing the gospel to was the family, who everyone else was trying to share the gospel to also. This was something amounting to a miracle for several different reasons. One, they found the gospel through different ways, but when they all found it, they started talking about it with each other. Second, I think, is an example of what is meant when it is said that eternal families are essential in salvation. Families are a gift from God to help and strengthen each other. And while the family were (and still are) open to the gospel message, it was through the mom, who is not even a member yet, that they were able to learn the most about the gospel.

It seems a lot of people that join the church, at least in Hungary, are the people that are seeking out a good thing to help guide their lives, as opposed to just looking for something that gives them pleasure and temporary happiness. The Relief Society president here told us her conversion story several weeks ago. I might of already shared it, but I want to share it again. She always saw the missionaries around here and there, and she said that they were always happy, and that they had a certain power about them. One day, to her surprise, she saw them walking down her street. She flung open her door and waved her arms and called them inside, and her, her husband, and son, were baptized a couple weeks later.

Another example is another family in our ward. A young woman that was invited to church five years ago by her friend, and she took the lessons, gained a testimony, and with her parents' consent was soon baptized. Her mom saw the change in her daughter's life, and soon was baptized a few months later. Recently, the other missionaries here in Veszprém have been teaching her brother, who has become really good friends with one of the missionaries. In one of the lessons recently, the missionaries and the young woman and her friend, all bore their testimonies, and then they asked him, who had by now been reading out of an illustrated Book of Mormon Stories book for awhile, to pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true. They all felt the Spirit so strongly, and at the end of the prayer, he started crying (happy tears!) and said that he got his answer and knew the Book of Mormon was true. He is going to be baptized on the 28th, also.

There was this one article in a Liahona once that talked about different ways we can receive a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Sometimes it is through just diligently reading the Book of Mormon and feeling the spirit. Sometimes it is through living according the the Book of Mormon and seeing the positive change in your life. Sometimes it is through sincere prayer that the Book of Mormon is true, after reading and pondering. There was a fourth way in the article, too, but I can't remember it off the top of my head!